TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Planetary Dust Tails

We are slowly beginning to actually map the fine detail of the near space envelope surrounding our solar system.Of course, it is turning out to be way more complicated than earlier researchers ever imagined.

Mapping the bow wave with a lot of data points is obviously important,mapping the tail of turbulence will be far more difficult and possibly even more important.We have already learned much that is mind bending.

Then picking up the internal tails produced by what will always be a family of planets is a plausible method that could independently be used to map their paths if they actually provide a detectable signal.At least the dust rings will be separated from the star itself and they will not all be asteroid belts.

It would be really neat if they somehow absorbed or radiated best along some wavelength, but that is dreaming.

November 12, 2010: Did you know that the Earth has a dust tail? The Spitzer Space Telescope sailed right through it a few months ago, giving researchers a clear idea of what it looks like. That could be a big help to planet hunters trying to track down alien worlds.

"Planets in distant solar systems probably have similar dust tails," says Spitzer project scientist Mike Werner. "And in some circumstances these dust features may be easier to see than the planets themselves. So we need to know how to recognize them."

It's extremely challenging – and usually impossible – to directly image exoplanets. They're relatively small and faint, hiding in the glare of the stars they orbit.

"A dust tail like Earth's could produce a bigger signal than a planet does. And it could alert researchers to a planet too small to see otherwise."

Earth has a dust tail not because the planet itself is particularly dusty, but rather because the whole solar system is. Interplanetary space is littered with dusty fragments of comets and colliding asteroids. When Earth orbits through this dusty environment, a tail forms in the rear, akin to swaths of fallen leaves swirling up behind a streetsweeper.

"As Earth orbits the sun, it creates a sort of shell or depression that dust particles fall into, creating a thickening of dust – the tail – that Earth pulls along via gravity," explains Werner. "In fact, the tail trails our planet all the way around the sun, forming a large dusty ring."

Like our own solar system, other planetary systems are infused with dust that forms a dusty disk encircling the central star. And like Earth, exoplanets interact with their dust disk gravitationally, channeling and drawing strange features into it.

"In some stars' dust disks there are bumps, warps, rings, and offsets telling us that planets are interacting with the dust," explains Mark Clampin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "So we can 'follow the dust' to the planets. So far, we've seen about 20 dust disks in other solar systems. And in some of those cases, following the dust has already paid off."

Clampin, Paul Kalas, and colleagues were looking for a planet around the bright southern star Fomalhaut when they unexpectedly found a dust ring. The shape of that ring led them to their goal. "We suspected that the ring's sharp inner edge was formed by a planet gravitationally clearing out the surrounding debris," says Clampin. "We tracked the planet by this 'footprint' in the dust." (See the footprint here.)

Another Hubble image shows a dusty disk around Beta Pictoris, a star in the constellation Pictor, or "Painter's Easel," pictured below:

"Note the smaller dust ring that's tilted with respect to the larger dust disk," says Clampin. "Like Earth, this planet is shepherding the dust into its orbital plane."

Clampin and Werner say Spitzer's observation of Earth's dust tail and these initial observations of dust structures in distant solar systems set the stage for the planet hunting debut of the James Webb Space Telescope. They fully expect the huge and powerful new telescope to spot many tell-tale tails ... of the alien variety.

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About Me

Apr 2017 - 4.1 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO rigorously described, September 2010 I am pleased to report that my essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS' has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) and appeared in their June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in relativity,as well as differential geometry(pure math) and of course analysis. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift&. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data and record impressions and interpretations on material read. Do join my blog and receive Four items of interest daily Monday through Saturday.